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I was fortunate enough to draw another deer tag this year and have been putting in alot of time in the hills the past 2 months. I had 2 bucks picked out for sure this year and knew it would be one of them or nothing. I packed in the day prior to the hunt and set up my camp. I managed to turn up a few nice bucks the evening before the opener but wasn't able to locate one of the bucks I was after. 3:45 came early the next day and I crawled out of my sleeping bag and started getting everything ready. Within a hour my brother inlaw showed up to hunt the morning with me before he had to work. We managed to get to the glassing hill with time to set up everything before the sun came up. I soon found my self glassing into the basin that I've seen my target buck in. I scanned the only turning over a few does. I was about to turn and glass below us for my other buck when some coyoties started sounding off below ous and deer came pouring over the cut above us. I saw what looked like a nice buck come out of the same area I've seen the big buck and although he was a solid deer he wasn't the one I was looking for. We glassed for another hour or so then started focusing our efforts on the shade. My brother inlaw called me over to his spotter and he had located a buck that he knew I needed to take a look at and make the judgment call myself. We sat and watched him for probably 15 minutes before I decided to pass. We continued to glass when I turned up 2 bucks. one was a smaller 4x4 maybe mid 80s and the other was a stud of a 2 point. As im watching the larger 2 point I see a deer making his way through some thick brush. I turned to my brother inlaw and said we need to figure out what that deer was. We knew that most of the bucks were still running together and he had to be a buck. We stared at a 40 yard circle for close to 20 minutes when my brother inlaw happened to glass the buck bedded in a small opening inside the thicket. He was just sat in a way that we though it was him but couldn't quite tell. We compared him to the videos we had back and forth for what seemed to be forever. Finally he turned jsut right giving us the look that we had been looking for to make conformation. Laying down below us bairly noticeable through the 15s was the one of the bucks I was after Pitchfork. We got set up and checked the range, we waited for what seemed like a eternity and finally he stood up. Shortly after he got up, I was able to successfully harvest this amazing buck. What a awesome, yet short hunt it was. I cant wait to do it again.

After many years of Hunting AZ Coues Deer I finally killed a good one! The story is short and sweet. Opening day in my usual places were not producing any bucks, plenty of does but no antlers at all. I moved down to the river bottom in some very thick cover where I had seen a few small bucks before opening day. As we all know it was unusually hot so I figured this to be a good strategy. At about 4 pm on opening day this buck walked out at 60 yards! My Marlin 336Y in 30-30 did the job and my hunt was over.

They got one down! One to go! Thanks Stanley for the info

The boys got their elk on that youth hunt, But this is my first elk. 7E was a hard hunt for me. I found some water that both cows and bulls were hitting at various times of the day. Total bonus, considering most of these elk are nocturnal right now. So I decided to take a walk and find the best path from the waterhole and do some still hunting. Turns out the Lord guided me to a cow about a mile out And I took her down. Day 4 ends the hunt. Took her back to camp and got her deboned. Tomorrow is elk burgers. The family is really looking forward to it. This was a solo hunt for me,And I forgot how everything freezes when you leave camp. That was a pain in the butt. Looking forward to going home tomorrow.

I haven't seen any with rocks, so here is the one I just got back from JJ's Rocks and Skullz.

Making Hunting Great again! No more trail Camera bullchit Hope Utah is next!

Sir I was referring to 2018 at the 2nd commissioners meeting . Sorry if I did not clarify that. I watched the meeting and one of the Commissioner's called them.

That’s why I love hunting the Big Bo no cameras. Keeps it fair. Got to hunt/scout the old-fashion way. Someone had a trail camera on Elk tank on the Big Bo! Nevada has a trail cam season. No cams 8/1-12/31. Seem reasonable to me

We should ban droughts.

LOL. Nice try. I use trail cameras, I muzzleloader hunt. I bow hunt. I rifle hunt. If you support all legal methods of hunting, you will soon support not using trail cameras. The only ones who are upset, are the guys that depend on cameras to kill animals. If you can step out of your bubble and look at things from other's point of view it may help. I personally have seen how easy hunting is with cellular trail cams. In the eastern/ midwest states, they use them extensively and it makes killing animals easier 100%. Those were legal here 2 years ago. Do you not think that companies are always trying to invent things to make hunting even easier? When you hunt different states and see how their rules affect their game, it will open your eyes to a lot of new things. Alaska's Wan Ton waste rules are strict as heck and it HELPS prevent wildlife waste. North Dakota's ML rules allow no more than a 1x scope and it helps keep muzzleloaders more primitive. In North Dakota, there are VERY few surprise animals that show up anymore. Chances are, you or your neighbor has pics of him. This same thing is happening in certain units here. dang near EVERY big deer is known about with multiple guys knowing his where abouts with very little effort. Animal populations are on the down swing, so a little bit of conservation and restriction is not always a bad thing.

I started in 2014 . Its alot of fun ! Its a treasure hunt! Im fine if they put a season on say shutting it down before Archery deer or similar. I spend alot of my summers running cams probably average 15 to 20 cams a year. I love seeing the growth each year of the antlers and the lions and bears and deer and elk and people on them. 😁

If it's a Fair Chase issue than what is radio/electronic communication during a stalk? Spotlight scouting? F&G Comission is focusing on a squeaky wheel... Ed F

SirRoyal this isn't a pissing match. Ive killed a lot of big animals and I'm sure you are a good hunter as well. I've seen some of your pics and I know we both know what we are doing when it comes to finding big animals. We can agree to disagree on who is the main culprit. I've met good guides and some real bad ones. It's just unfortunate it's coming to this where the average Joe can't run a camera or two anymore in a mediocre unit where it isn't affecting anyone. Thats the real issue I see here.

I’m glad you’re doing it the way you’re doing it I suppose, but not all the outfitters guide hunters the way you say you do things. I really don’t mind the guides out there one on one with a client, but when they have an entourage that rappers would be jealous of, that’s a little ridiculous. I’m sorry you took offense to what I said but I still stand by what I believe since I’ve seen it happen. I wouldn’t consider myself misinformed as I’ve witnessed it numerous times with my own eyes. I used to have places in the southern units where I’ve never seen another person up until about two years ago, fast forward to the present day, and now those areas are completely flooded with guides (Insert Outfitter Name Here) and their cameras, I’ll let you figure out which ones. Everyone competing for the biggest baddest animals to post up on social media for the comments/likes/virtual pats on the back, outfitters trying to get the clientele with watermarks on every picture, it’s all become just short of a big azz animal prostitution ring.

So all the time and money invested in the training ,the skills and the knowledge involved in having game wardens in the field. Their time will be spent chasing down and findng hunters and guides and charge them with a crime for taking pictures of animals. Think about it ! Like there isn't more important issues! What a waste of valuable manpower.

I dont want cams to be banned. I think they are really cool. I like to see how some animals act. I see that it says "for use of taking game/wildlife" how do they know if it is being used for a hunt or not?

Thanks guys, Yea im super stoked to have been able to seal the deal. Just dropped him off at the taxidermist yesterday. He said he should be able to fix the G2. Cant wait for January...

While I think it was great to kill at short range with the 30-30 (which is why I posted the story and pic) it wasn't my first choice of gun or hunting area. Guess I should have told the longer story. I love my 30-30 and I love coues deer hunting. However, I am well prepared for long range shots. My usual spots in the hunting area are high on ridgetops glassing oak choked canyons below us with my tripod mounted zeiss 15x56 Bino's and my Semi-Custom Remington 700 25-06 with zeiss V4 6-24x50 scope by my side. As stated we were not seeing any bucks in the 3 days prior to the season or on opening morning as we usually do. After spotting a few small bucks lower in the river bottoms I hiked into some thick lowland toting the 30-30 (always in my truck when out camping) for a fast shot at a running deer should I jump one. After finding an opening with about 150 yard shotting lanes I sat and watched the water. After only 15 minutes of sitting there I had this buck, with 4 others, step out at 60 yards. I thought it was great as we are all used to long range shots with lots of glassing and some stalking before making a shot. I felt strangely like I was back in New York with my 30-30 in the woods instead of feeling like I was hunting in Arizona. As a side note, I took my 16 year old son into the same area Saturday morning and set him up with a slightly different vantage point than I had been in the day before. At 7am a small 3x2 buck stepped into the shooting lane at 114 yards. He took him cleanly with one shot from his Reminton 700 243. The buck fell dead about 200 yards from where mine was shot. This was his 3rd deer in 4 years of hunting. The first was a 4x4 Mule deer in the same unit, the second a spike whitetail also from the same unit, and this one. Knowing the area was working I took my wife into the same area Saturday evening and set her up near where I was sitting the day before. She is a new hunter, also only 4 years, who has killed one fork horned whitetail at 237 yards and a spike bull elk at 112 yards. Unfortunently, she had her first case of buck fever when a buck, a little smaler than mine, stepped out after an hour of sitting there. The buck was 30 yards from where I had shot mine and again only about 60 yards from her but she managed to make a clean miss with her Remington 700 in 257 Roberts. The next morning we headed into the same area. At about 1130 am another buck, a little bigger than my sons, stepped out at 42 yards! Again, she managed to make a clean miss! Guess I got her too used to shooting longer ranges because she couldn't seem to hit anything in close. Or just buck fever again. We laughed and had a good time while I told her stories of me having buck fever a few times over the years. Regardless, she was discouraged so I took the 30-30 back out and told her to use it in that area from now on. Monday was a waisted day for us as I spent the majority of the day in town working. Tuesday mroning at 615 am, again in the same place, she spotted a spike buck at 72 yards. She decided to take him and made one clean shot kill with the same Marlin 336y 30-30 I shot mine with. We are not trophy hunters and filled our freezer with all 3 tags filled so life was good and we headed home on Wednesday. The bonus was the large rack on my deer, but only a bonus to us.

Well said sir. Bingo

Something different I tried with this year's archery javi.

I am a fan of closed mouth mounts and especially in Javelina. Definitely a more natural look.

Here's my Javi mount...little different. Taxi mounted it but I did the habitat surround years ago.

I met this other guy from the ATA who says he was the first to kill a lion at night and that Dave M and Dan T are just a couple of posers that found a road killed lion! Now Rifleman that's not very nice to talk about someones lion that they called in like that. No need to spread rumors, it might make someone mad. Nice lion though Dave! Bet that's quite the experience at night. There are several differences let me list them! 1. I have known Dan T since he was a kid and we were trying to smoke out the source of a bad rumor! 2. I don't claim to be an expert on Lions! 3. I don't have my picture plastered all over this site no one on this site know's who I am..So now everyone knows what you look like and what kinda guy you are! 4. Not 1 member on this site has "liked" anything you have said!